Quick post

Just a quick post. Weigh in was today, dropped another pound. Total of 10 since we started the weight loss challenge on Feb 1st. Today we jumped rope, punched the bag, did a couple of laps and plenty of core work. Add that to the usual cardio that we start out with and it equals a great workout!

Getting ready to go get a pedicure as a little reward.

Hope everyone is having a great week.  I'll be back soon with more interesting bits and bobs.  Talk soon.

...and I'm paying someone to do this?

Yep, I'm actually paying someone to guide me (read, torture) through some of the hardest exercises I've ever done.  Today we did lateral squats, all the way around the track.  Oh, did I mention we had a flat rubber band on our legs at the time? 

Honestly, I'd say we did between 100 and 200 of these traveling squats.  Stretch and squat, stretch and squat. This was after our usual 15 minute warm up on the elliptical.  Then we went to the top of the stairs of the building, three flights with landing between each set of steps.  Had to "run"  the steps, then do exercises on the landings.  When we got to the bottom, then we had to go back up the stairs two at a time.  I have to admit I flaked out on several of the exercises, but I did alternate ones.  Instead of doing knee push ups on the concrete floor, I opted to do wall push ups, which are still pretty intense.  I was ok doing jumping jacks on that landing, but doing the burpees/squat thrusts was impossible, so I did more wall push ups.  On the way back up, I did take two of the flights two steps at a time, using the handrail.  One of the flights I just walked up.  I thought several times that I might upchuck, but I didn't.  You know what?  I'm glad I did this. Maybe it's because I took a green tea extract supplement, but I feel great and still very energetic.

Hubby and I went to Ruby Tuesday's and had a celebratory meal.  Finishing this workout was worth the extra calories that I intentionally consumed.  Not only was the celebration because we finished the workout, but for me it was because I lost another pound.

So that's nine pounds in four weeks and I've got ten more weeks to go.  I'm pumped.  I'll probably be sore tomorrow, but it's all part of the big picture.

Ummm, and how was your day??

Another week has passed

We had our weigh-in today.  I have dropped two pounds, the hubby dropped four.  Our regular trainer is on vacation, so we have a substitute.  While she is nice and quite competent, we do miss our regular trainer.  She put us through circuit training, after 15 minutes of cardio.  I have felt a bit yucky this week, and really didn't push myself too hard.  I am still very sore from the workout Tuesday and might even be trying to "fight off something". 

But enough whining from me.  I'll be back soon.

Today's workout

10 minutes on the Arc Machine, resistance of 25, then down to 10, for two minutes...

Then after we warmed up on that machine, she took us over to the treadmill and had us do seven minutes on an incline of 15, which a bit higher than this next picture shows...

She then had us reduce the incline to what you see here and hold a weighted medicine bowl in our hands while we walked.  Then, she had us hold the medicine ball over our heads for 30 seconds.  Talk about hard...  but I did it.

After the treadmill routine, she took us into the studio room with the mirrors and had us balance on a bosu ball and lift 8 pound weights to our shoulders, then up while attempting to balance on this funny looking half ball.

It is very difficult to even stay on the ball, this image from the web shows someone without shoes, but we were wearing our shoes. I was able to do a few lifts, step off the ball for a second and then reposition myself and do a couple more.  I changed out the 8 pounders for 5 pound weights for the next set which was doing squats with only one foot on the ball, while bring our arms out straight from our sides while holding the weights. Intense to be sure.

Then we put on our boxing gloves and did three sets, one minute each on the stand up punching bag.

These bad boys are weighted enough to keep from moving much, but if you punch hard enough they will move around the room.  That's always fun.

After the punching bag, we did crunches touching opposite arm to opposite leg.  That was a good ab workout and when we were done here, she said now turn over on your mat (I thought she was going to have us do a nice relaxing ab stretch)... and do planks.

The gentleman in this image from the web makes it look easy, but believe me, at this stage of the game it's not yet simple.  I can do it for about 5-6 seconds at a time.  It's a killer exercise and I'm sure at the end of 15 weeks we will have mastered it.

We then do our stretches and cool down while sitting on the mat.  I guess she knows we are so tired we can hardly get up.

My recovery time is increasing by leaps and bounds, as is my strength and endurance.  I'm really glad we decided to do this.

Oh, by the way, I did lose one pound at today's weigh in. Hubby stayed the same, I think Pete gained  and Gail lost.

Hubs and I are being especially diligent about our food diary, measuring and weighing all our food.  It's all part of the experience.

Well, hope that some of these routines are ones that you can incorporate into your workouts.  Thanks for keeping up with me in my journey toward strength and health.

Be back soon with more fun stuff.  See ya then!

And the beat goes on....

Yep, we finished another week of training and eating healthy and the hubby and I each lost one pound each.  Gail lost three pounds and Pete gained one.  Since we are in this for our health and not really "in it to win it" no one mentioned his gain.  Seriously though, this makes a five pound loss for me so far during the challenge and brings my total loss since joining the gym to 12 pounds.  I hadn't wanted to admit that one day I saw 200, but I did.  Only once mind you, but I'm counting it in my pounds lost.  I was weighing in at 197 and 198 on a regular basis.  This morning after shedding all my clothes, I weighed 188.8.  I am actually quite motivated.

As a group we joined a site called My Fitness Pal.  We set our group up so we could view each other's daily food entries, and that is also helping to motivate me.  Except, I found out after years of thinking 1000 calories or less was ideal...it's not.  I need to be eating between 1200-1400 calories daily to LOSE WEIGHT.  Having been a life long dieter, I thought I knew it all.  Well, I'm here to admit that I don't.  I was sabotaging my own health by consuming too few calories.  I am having to make myself eat more, but I really think it's going to be the real deal.

So our last training session consisted of punching the banana bag, doing step exercises, lifting weights and doing crunches and the plank.  We also ran laps, bicycled and ellipitical-ed.  Even while sweating profusely, I realized that I kind of like this.  It hurts, but it feels good to hurt from exercise, and not just from hauling my own weight around.

So that's it from me this week.  Remember to look into "starvation mode" and "eat more to lose less".  It's real.  Seriously, it is.

As those Life cereal kids used to say to Mikey..."try it, you'll like it".

First weigh in

Well, we had our second session and our first weigh in yesterday.  Our trainer had us take our shoes off, even though we initially weighed with them on.  Confusing, I know but it did make the first weigh in seem impressive.  Plus this way, I can wear whatever shoes I want to work out in. I lost four pounds and everyone else lost one.  I knew that I had lost because my scale at home is accurate.  So I'm motivated about that.

Our workout consisted of 10 minutes on the elipitical and then 10 minutes on the stationary bikes.  We used various resistances and speeds and worked up a good sweat.  Funny, after all these years I would like to sweat.  I've even started wearing a bandana tied around my head to keep the sweat from going in my eyes. Oh, yeah...that's really a cute look on me.  We put on boxing gloves and two of us punched a banana bag, while the other two went around the track.  Since hubby and I were going around the track together, we decided to jog and believe it or not, after him slowing me down to pace myself, we jogged the entire lap.  It's a 1/8 mile lap and we did that, then ran in the gym so the others could stop punching the bag and get ready to do the track.  Without any break, they took to the track and we hit the punching bags. We did this twice, so hubs and I actually ran the lap twice.  It was fun and hard at the same time.  After that we got on stability balls, leaned back and did crunches for 30 seconds at a time.  I'm still a bit scared of the balls and my dismount was very awkward, but I got it done.  We then did a stretch and cool down on nice thick floor mats that didn't hurt my coccyx or tailbone, which I broke thirty years ago while ice skating.  I just might have to get a mat like that for home.

Well, it was hard to believe that our hour was up.  We did another lap on our own to cool down and hubby and I decided to stay at the gym and work of the machines.  So I worked ten more minutes on the elliptical, the track again and used the dumbbells and ended up with a 90 minute workout in all.

All in all, it was another great workout and I'm not very sore today.  Since we have a challange on Saturday, I do think we will use today as a recovery day.  I hope I haven't bored you with this account, but I had never known what working with a trainer was like and thought maybe some of you would find it interesting to see what our trainer was doing.

So that's it for now, I'll be back next week with the results of the challenge. Wish us luck!

The Jetsons

Well, we had our first session with the trainer.  The hubby and I had thought that we would be on different teams, but we changed our minds. I'm glad we did.  It was fun working out together.  This morning we met at 8:00 a.m. with the trainer and the other two members of our team.  We seem to be matched up fairly well.  All four of us are in our 50's.  Hubby and I have been in training for these training sessions for several weeks, but our team mates haven't worked out in a while.  Chelsea (our trainer) started us out on the treadmill at an incline of 10 and speed of 2.5.  We did this for six minutes, then lowered the incline and speed for two minutes.  For the last three minutes we went back up to 10 and 2.5.   We then went directly to the elliptical machines and did a similar routine.  This was the first time I had done the elliptical in about three months.  The last time I tried, my knee hurt and I couldn't stay on it at all.  Today...no problem.  I was into it.  Quite honestly, it felt pretty good to not be as challenged as I would have been without being in "training-for-training".  Now this is not to say that I didn't sweat like....like.... well, like something that sweats a bunch.  Because I did. 

Of course, we did some strengthening exercises.  We tossed a six pound medicine ball back and forth twenty times and then we took a giant step back and tossed it to each other twenty more times. We sat down on mats and did sit ups by facing each other, and alternately holding the medicine ball in our hands, sitting up and tossing it to our partner, then they did the same.  So we sat up and tossed to each other for twenty times each.  She also had us put our plump little legs in the air and make an attempt at doing some leg raising crunches.  We all made it through all of this.

At some point she had us do biceps curls and punches with hand weights.  I chose five pounders and toward the end of the second set of 20 reps, of the third routine...I was quite winded.  We did stretches and cool downs and survived.

Back when we were on the elliptical, Chelsea asked if we wanted to participate in the physical challenges that are part of the program.  We decided we did, but we needed a name in order to sign up, so I suggested The Jetsons.  I wanted us to have a team name that was a bit silly, so the other teams wouldn't think we were a threat.  Hopefully, at the end of the program we will be zooming around that gym just like something from the space age. 

Well, that's it for our first training session.  When we weighed in last week, I was 196 pounds.  Our weigh in's will be on Thursdays and even though she hasn't fixed us up with an eating plan, I'm hoping to have dropped a pound or two.

I'll keep you posted.  Gots to go.  Whew, I'm tarred.